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About rocker

Hiya all,
Long time lurker here, maybe as long as 10 years.
I've been battling for half that time to clear a lot of debt. And the other half battling to save a deposit. I've scraped together a fairly paltry £25k, which i'm sure, still isnt really enough to get one of these shoebox homes. I have always kept a bit of a eye on property abroad. I live in Poole, UK and visit France. It's amazing what a splash of water between land does to house prices, as there's a lot on offer in France.
Anyhow, i'm on the cusp of being able to afford to buy a fixer-upper in France for cash if i wanted to, or i could try opening a French bank acct and do a 50% mortgage to keep some cash of my own to keep me going while i updated the property. (Or i can wait a little longer and bank a bit more.)
My question is, if i bought a £20,000 2/3 bed property in France and fixed it up to increase its value - I think it would be time consuming to try and resell it in France, so would i stand to gain instead from remortgaging it, and then use that to have a bigger deposit for buying back in England.
Or is this just a stupid plan?
If anyone has any thoughts around this, or if there's a post somewhere here from someone who has managed it, i'd be keen to know if this is a go-er or not to bother.

I can tell you for a fact there is an increase in student numbers. Hard to say what will happen next year with the increase in fee's. A lot of students are annoyed at the idea of an increase in fee's but would rather go into debt than finish college and not be able to get a job. At least they are doing something constructive, despite getting into debt.
I think there will be an increase in students going to attending the nearest uni to where their parents live, rather than moving out and renting. This should hit the BTL market. While international students will like to stay in the kind of accommodation shown being built at the start of this thread, as its safer and easier than the chaos of private renting.

This made me laugh - Council leader Tony Ball said the sum was "hugely above" the market value.
A representative of families living on an illegal traveller site in Essex said they would leave if they were paid £6m for their land, a council has said.
Richard Sheridan, Gypsy Council president, is leading the fight against evictions from Dale Farm, Basildon.
Basildon Council said he offered to move the families to Birmingham or Scotland. Mr Sheridan was unavailable for comment on Tuesday.
Council leader Tony Ball said the sum was "hugely above" the market value.
Last week the travellers lost their 10-year battle to remain at the site and were told they would be evicted on 19 September.
Half the dwellings on the site are legal but more than 80 have no planning permission and must be demolished.
About 400 people are said to be living illegally at Dale Farm.
Legal solution sought
The £6m offer was turned down because it would mean travellers profiting from breaking the law, Basildon Council said.
"The council has consistently sought a peaceful resolution to the Dale Farm situation and done all it can to avoid a forced clearance of the site," Mr Ball said.
"I have always said that I would listen to any offers made by the travellers that would help to avoid the forced clearance.
"Traveller representatives offered to sell their land to the council hugely above market value in return for clearing the site.
"I felt I should consider any legal solutions to avoid a forced clearance.
"However, clearly it would have been unacceptable to enter any agreement where the travellers effectively profited from breaking the law and this was a step too far."
Four meetings were held over six months between council chiefs, Mr Sheridan and other travellers.
Joseph Jones, a colleague of Mr Sheridan's at the Gypsy Council, said he did not know whether £6m was asked for.
He said: "The climate of those meetings has to be seen in the backdrop of a community that is desperate to find any solution whatsoever."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-essex-14804705

Availability of Sold Price Data is not freezing the house market. People raising prices so high that buyers cant afford a deposit or get a mortgage is a much bigger cause of stand off.
Ask yourself this, if your potential buyer decides not to buy your property based on the Sold Price Data they saw, and buys a house around the corner where the person selling it only had it for a year, and barely modified the selling price. Would you re-think your price hike to sell the property? Or would you - being convinced the property is worth more than you paid for it - continue to wait for a buyer with more money than sense?
Also, do you not look at previous prices yourself? They are very useful for spotting people who are trying to pull a fast one.

I hope this is a troll who started this thread.
But anyway, as you think your not ripping anyone off and your asking what you feel the house is worth, then why should you care about sold price data?
Try saying to the potential buyer that when you bought the place a year ago, it was a bit of a bargain. And you think its only fair that you price the property correctly now you are selling it. You could also explain to them that you're a better business man and because of that you have every right to hike up the price of the property.
Perhaps you care about sold price data, because it reveals to people how much your trying to hike up the price of the property and make a quick buck?
You say that "Its not as if perfumes, jewellery or other items are priced in this way. " but if I am looking to make a big investment, i tend to look around at prices first, whether on the internet or in several shops for the best price. And quite often when you find the best price it lists the original price too. Take looking for a new sofa. I would buy new in a sale where they show what the previous price was. You often see 'was ££££, now £££' on items such as tv's, beds, etc etc. So why not houses?

Just saw the National Home Buyers on TV - we buy any home. Sounds like the 'We buy any car people'
A sign of things to come perhaps? Sure enough there will be people profiteering on the crash. Which seems to have gathered pace again recently.

I lived in the flat above this one (renting) for 6 months. The landlord owned both the upstairs and downstairs. We left as soon as possible as the upstairs flat was a shambles, the longer we lived there the more problems we found, and the landlord was uninterested in fixing anything.
We spoke to the people who lived in the downstairs flat before they were evicted. They were renting the flat mason refers to.
They decided to with hold rent as their flat was full of damp, and even had running water down their bedroom wall. Our flat also suffered from damp. I would urge anyone considering this property to get a detailed survey of the property as it certainly needs repair work.